


To Forge a Leader

by Airyll



Series: The Shielding of Souls [1]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Blood Legion (Guild Wars 2), Charr (Guild Wars), Implied/Referenced Character Death, Pre-Commander Timeline, The Black Citadel (Guild Wars 2)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 02:44:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20250871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airyll/pseuds/Airyll
Summary: Felidae Soulshield is a proud Legionnaire of the Blood Legion, and head of the Soul Warband. When the ghosts of Ascalon rise in defiance of Charr superiority, it was only natural that she and her warband answer the call. It was also only natural that, one day, not all of the Soul Warband would return home. As if the bitter taste of loss were not enough of a pill to swallow, one of the Blood Tribunes has seen fit to task her with an assignment nobody wants her to take; to assist the likes of the Vigil, and potentially join their ranks as a soldier.On the brink of being sent away from her family, Felidae must somehow find an arrangement that benefits everybody - including herself - while keeping her warband from fracturing completely under the increasing strain.





	To Forge a Leader

**Author's Note:**

> The inaugural chapter of my series "The Shielding of Souls" that follows my Charr player character, Felidae Soulshield, through her journeys in Tyria.

"You can't possibly be serious, we only just-"

"-Soldier, if I wanted to hear you _argue_ with me about your orders, I'd have invited you to give me your opinion in the first place."

Felidae swallowed the urge to growl, and fought to keep a look of mild irritation on her face so that she wouldn't snarl at her superior. She had a great deal of respect for the Tribunes, and it was something of an honour for any one of them to come to her directly with an assignment. That didn't change the fact, however, that she didn't like this assignment _at all_. It also didn't make it any easier to deal with said Tribunes when one of them spoke down to her like she was little more than a cub.

"With all due respect, sir," she tried again, sucking in a breath and steeling her resolve, "my warband just suffered major losses. More than half our number. I can't just _leave_ them."

The Tribune's gaze was as piercing as any bladed weapon. His back straightened and his eyes narrowed, and he stared down at Felidae with an expression she couldn't pin down. Disappointment? Anger? He certainly didn't seem pleased that she pressed the issue of this assignment. Yet the moment passed, something in his gaze softened, and he relaxed his posture. "I'm not letting you turn down this assignment, Soulshield. But... _bah_. I'll give you an extra week to think it over, maybe come up with some kind of compromise. Or to just appoint a new Legionnaire. But after that, you're working with the Vigil whether you like it or don't. I need a good soldier I can trust out in the field, a point of contact between the Black Citadel and the Vigil."

Felidae's ears pricked upwards and she folded her arms in front of her chest. The Tribune noticed this change in posture, and he snorted with disdain. "I have little interest in the affairs of the Orders, to be clear. But it is in the interest of the High Legions to have points of contact in all of them, _especially_ if this dragon threat is real."

"The Risen are growing in numbers?" She questioned with a flick of her tail, some genuine intrigue in her tone. "I would have thought the Imperator would still be focused on matters closer to home."

"Aye, so did I. But recent reports are... concerning. You'll be briefed more on that when this assignment starts, though. Sort out your warband for now, Soulshield, and get them prepared for Citadel life without you in it. You're going to be gone for a while, and I don't know when you're going to be back." The Tribune turned to leave, with a rather gruff sort of sigh at that, and Felidae watched him go with a bittersweet feeling of victory.

"Why can't my warband come with me?" she asked after him, prompted by a fleeting thought. The question made the Tribune pause, seemingly in some thought of his own, before he glanced at Felidae over his shoulder.

"Because you're going to join the Vigil at the bottom of the pack, soldier. You won't have the chance to be leading your warband while you doggedly follow the orders of Vigil Warmasters. _Maybe_ if you can ascend to higher ranks in the Order, I'll consider a formal request to transfer your warband to out-of-Citadel operations under your guidance, but not before. Clear?"

The Blood Legionnaire saluted. Whether the Tribune knew it or not - and he seemed like a smart Charr, so it was likely he did indeed know - he had set Felidae a clear goal to work towards. Something that would benefit him, her and most importantly: her warband. "Crystal clear, sir." 

* * *

The barracks hadn't seemed like an appropriate place to speak to her comrades. The air there had been too heavy for Felidae's liking; too many warbands had suffered some kind of loss in the attack on the Citadel, and the grief was festering like a bad wound. It would heal up soon enough of course, as those same warbands found ways to cope with the losses in whatever way best suited them, but it made it seem far too inappropriate to tell her own warband that they were about to effectively lose another member in that barracks at that time. So, after some thought, Felidae had ordered them out to a bar on the outskirts of the Citadel (and as if an order wasn't enough reason to go, she had promised that drinks were on her.)

Her choice of venue proved to be even better than she had expected it to be, once they arrived. Very few Charr were there, leaving the bar relatively quiet and with only a handful of other patrons that were far too busy with their noses in their drinks to care about the Soul Warband's current affairs.

Unsurprisingly, Schier Soulstrike was three drinks in by the time everybody else had finished their first. She was Felidae's closest friend; a necromancer since she was small, Schier had been bullied by her fahrar due to her choice of magics and her rather diminutive size. Felidae had been her friend back then, but had been in a differing fahrar and couldn't do much to help. It was only when Felidae's _own_ fahrar began to exhibit the same bullying tendencies that the much larger cub shunned them, and offered to take Schier in and start a completely new warband together. Ever since, the females had been inseparable, and Felidae alone seemed to be the only Charr alive that could temper Schier's somewhat hostile attitude.

"I heard," the necromancer drawled, holding her mug in one paw while resting her head in the other, "that our favourite Legionnaire got a visit from a _Tribune_ today."

Felidae planned to ignore the comment. She turned her nose upwards in obvious dismissal, and downed a mouthful of alcohol, only to find that all three other Charr were staring at her intently. Schier had a shit eating smirk on her face, of course, all too pleased to have thrust Felidae into the spotlight when she hadn't planned on being there. Elexus and Soure were far less smug, but twice as intrigued and it became clear very quickly that they hadn't heard the news until that very moment Schier so _kindly_ chose to share it. The Legionnaire looked to each bandmate in turn, her stomach tying itself into a knot with each moment that passed where she didn't answer and they looked more intent to hear about what happened. No thanks to her reprobate of a friend, it seemed like it was now or never.

She took another, far larger swig of alcohol and cleared her throat.

"I'm being put on special assignment."

"Oh, that's exciting," Elexus said immediately, with an approving nod. Schier didn't seem so thrilled, and Soure didn't seem to care. "Oh c'mon, it means we were noticed!" Elexus pressed with a somewhat wild gesture of both hands (spilling a small amount of drink in the process.)

"Eh, I dunno. I don't really care about special assignments. They take too long." Soure's gaze travelled from the warband to a nearby Ash Legion female that was drinking on her own. "I like my free time."

Elexus frowned and Schier snickered. Felidae found herself fairly reserved, not sure how to tackle the obvious problem she was seeing. Before she could even think of a resolution, Schier once again thrust her into the spotlight, and the hint of suspicion in her tone didn't help the Blood Legionnaire feel any better about what she knew she'd have to tell them. "You said _you're_ being put on special assignment. What about _us_?"

Once again, all eyes were on her. Liquid courage abandoned Felidae the moment she needed it most; the large Charr hesitated to answer at all, and the hesitation was all her warband needed to realise the implication.

"Bullshit." Schier's tone was now an aggressive hiss. "They can't do that. What about us?"

"Wait, hang on," Elexus interrupted Schier before a rant could really start. "Boss, what assignment are you being put on?"

"Tribune Brimstone has assigned me to join the Vigil, and act as a middle ground between the Order and the High Legions. I would be leaving my posting here, for a time at least."

The mood darkened almost immediately. The excitement Elexus had shown originally at the idea of a special assignment evaporated. Schier was now glaring daggers into her drink. Even Soure looked a little distressed by the news, and he was the one to break the tense silence. "So they're makin' you leave us, Boss? Or did you agree to-"

"-To be very clear, I _didn't_ volunteer for this. I'm just not being given a choice; an order is an order is an order. I'm doing my best to find a way to stay with you _and_ take this posting, but I don't think I'm going to be able to manage it quickly. We have a week to sort things out here, and then my assignment starts." Felidae lifted her mug and downed the rest of her second drink of the night. She didn't order a third, but despite that, she dropped some coin onto the table as Schier and Soure both raised their hands to order another drink for themselves. She had, after all, said drinks were on her, and Felidae didn't plan to back out on that.

Schier didn't even blink as he fourth drink was put in front of her; she damn near swiped the mug from the bartender and chugged the entire thing. On another night, in another bar, maybe the warband would have been chanting her name as she did this, recklessly encouraging such unhealthy behaviour. Now, though, Elexus had a look of concern and almost seemed like she was about to tell the necromancer to stop. As Schier finished the last drops, she let out a breath and shook her head. "First Synthys, Torque, Maverick, Clawspur and Reeva. Now you, too? Our Legionnaire? It's still bullshit."

"Schier..."

"It is! It is and you _know_ it is, Felid! Burn me, we're already half a warband and now they want to just ship your tail off to some Order, in the fucking middle of the human war against centaurs? And what about us, hm?"

Felidae flinched. Elexus reached out and placed a hand on Schier's arm, gripping it tightly enough to take the necromancer's attention. Soure stared into the table like it had the answers nobody else did. "... I don't know. I'm sorry. The Tribune has said he'll consider a transfer request, if I can reach a high enough rank in the Vigil to warrant commanding my own soldiers again. But that's going to take time, and I don't know how much time, either." It didn't feel like a satisfactory answer to give her warband, and Felidae hated that. She had felt like a failure when five of their number failed to return from the battle against Barradin, and now that failure was only compounded by her inability to answer such basic questions. The Legionnaire sighed heavily, folded her arms on the table, and hid her face in them.

A rare moment of weakness from a normally unflinching leader.

The longest silence of the night spread amongst the Soul Warband. Nobody knew what to say, let alone what to do. Their Legionnaire would be gone in a week, the biggest and physically strongest of them all, and none of them could say with any accuracy what would become of them in her absence. Felidae had assembled them all from various walks of life, but they all shared commonalities; all of them bullied, or gladiums, or otherwise outcasts from their original social groups. With Felidae _gone_, what would happen to them? It was a question that Felidae found herself brooding on, as she rested her forehead on her arms and pressed her snout somewhat uncomfortably against the table. What could she do to keep them safe, even if she wasn't there? There had to be something. She drummed the claws of one hand against the metalwork of the table, frowning where nobody could see. 

"Uh... Boss? You okay?" Soure asked.

A pause. Then, a muffled grumble. Felidae raised her head and rolled her shoulders.

"I don't have all the answers, and I can't bring back the dead. The only thing I can do, that any of us can do, is keep moving forwards with what we have. I can't just... sit around here, moping for an entire week. None of the others would have wanted me to do that, and you'd all be pulling the horns off my head for being so dreary otherwise." There was no easy solution, but the Tribune really had given her the best solution possible. Felidae summoned her resolve. "Schier, you're going to be acting Legionnaire in my place, _temporarily_."

"Oh boy," Soure muttered under his breath, and Schier glared at him.

"I'm going to join the Vigil, and however I can, I'm going to rise up their ranks until I can command my own soldiers. And when that time comes, I'll request a transfer of this unit, for it to leave the Citadel and follow under my orders once again. And then we'll kick tail like we _always_ have. Do you understand me, soldiers?"

"Yes, sir!" Elexus and Soure both answered in time, spirits seemingly revitalised by Felidae's own attitude. Schier did not answer, however, and all eyes now fell on her for a change. 

"Schier." 

"I don't have a choice, do I?"

Felidae shook her head. "You do not. You formed this warband with me, and you've been with me for the longest out of everybody here. You're acting Legionnaire, like it or not, because you're in the best position to know how _I'd_ lead the band if I had the choice to stay. You don't manage that, and you'll have to answer to me personally." It was a hard line to take, but Schier was a hard Charr to bargain with. Of all the warband, it was always Schier that needed the firmest push, especially regarding change. For all of her bad attitude and her sarcasm, Felidae knew the necromancer better than to fall for the bluster; she was frightened. All the same, Felidae also knew that she could rise up to the task she'd been set.

Schier frowned, and then pulled a face. "_Fiiiiine_," was the groaned response, begrudging but not disobedient. "Yes, _mom_."

Sassy as it had been, Felidae smiled at the response, and she nodded. "Good. Very good. We have a week to get our tails into shape for this change, soldiers, which isn't a lot of time. Take the rest of tonight off, and meet with me tomorrow in the barracks. There's work to do."


End file.
